It's Wanda who she goes to. After several long, breathless moments of looming awkwardly in the hallway, pacing in nervous circles in front of her own apartment as she contemplates what to do, where to go, she finds herself knocking a loud, steady rhythm out on Wanda's door.
She tells her everything – everything she can put into words, that is. She tells her about Scofield – which, of course, she already knew, the slight blush tinging her cheeks as she turns sheepishly away indicating that much. And she tells her about Atkinson – which is news that's somehow both shocking and utterly predictable all at once. And she tells her about the fire coursing currently through her veins, the barely contained power that she's so desperate to hold in. And so eager to let loose.
"On Atkinson, you mean?" Wanda asks, her tone sounding little more than curious, though a flicker of nervous energy emanates from her as she speaks. "You want to let loose on her? Kill her?"
Tessa looks over at the young woman sitting poised on the arm of the couch, big, round eyes staring intently at her as she frenetically paces the length of the room, ragged breaths spurting from her lips. She very nearly sobs – her glassy eyes burning both with frustrated tears and an unabating fire blazing deep within – when she responds with, "Yes!"
Wanda cocks her head slightly. "Do you think that you should?"
She freezes in her tracks and makes an odd, guttural uh sound as she frantically works to find an answer. "I…" she sputters. "I… don't know. I don't want to hurt anyone… I really don't." She distractedly shoves the sleeves of her sweater back up her arms – the temperature of her body seeming to steadily rise – before giving up and shucking the cardigan entirely, tossing it to the floor in a huff.
"Okay," Wanda nods, sliding slowly off the arm of the couch and down onto the cushions below. She reaches a hand out to Tessa. "Come here," issuing out in a gentle command.
She does as requested, crossing the room in two long strides and flopping down beside her friend. "I just… don't know," she repeats as Wanda takes her hot, trembling hand and folds it between her own. Tessa jerks in her grasp, lurching back to free herself from the hold. "I don't," she nearly yelps. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Why do you think you'd hurt me?" she asks, tone tender, almost pleading.
Tessa looks down at her hands as she folds them tightly together in her lap, worrying each burning digit as though she might somehow be able to rub away the heat. "I'm so… angry. You know? And… and…" Small, almost imperceptible cracks begin to bloom along her hands, splitting into tiny red slivers along her flesh. "I'm afraid it'll… if I lose my temper… or…" she stammers, her eyes going wide as they focus on the fissures. "It could take over. I could… I…" she breathes out, emitting a small gasp when her skin splits and fire slowly erupts from beneath.
"Tessa," Wanda murmurs, almost a warning.
"I can't," she cries, slamming her eyes shut and fiercely shaking her head. "I thought I could control it. But… I don't know why. You saw what I did! How can I… how could I…"
"Tessa," she repeats, voice stern. She reaches out and pulls her friend's overwrought hands into her own. "You can control it."
Her eyes startle open and she tries to tug away once again, "No!" shooting from her as she clenches her fingers tightly, desperate to pull the blistering energy back inside. But when she looks down at her hands – safely surrounded by Wanda's – she sees no glowing red cracks, no fiery fissures or scalding skin.
"You see?" Wanda asks, voice low and gentle. "There's no reason to think that you would hurt me." She waits for Tessa's teary – albeit, confused – gaze to rise and meet hers before finishing with, "or any of us. Not if you don't want to. I know that you can control it."
She swallows thickly, eyes dropping back down to her hands. "I saw," she starts before pausing and shaking her head pitifully. "It's happening again. I…" She nearly sobs as a wet, ragged breath pulls from her chest. "I don't know what's real."
Wanda reaches up and pets back her hair – tucking a few loose strands back behind her ear – as her right hand remains grasped around Tessa's fingers. "What you saw was real," she assures her. "Just like the things you saw and heard after your accident, when the wall in your mind was coming down… all of that was real. And the memories that are starting to resurface now, about the horrible things they did – "
"The horrible things I did," she interjects bitterly.
"Everything up here," Wanda goes on, raising a single finger to Tessa's temple and tapping lightly, "is real. Don't ever doubt that."
She sniffles loudly and rolls her eyes. "It isn't tangible, Wanda," she scoffs in a tear-filled tone. "You're talking to a scientist, remember?"
"Oh, right," she breathes out with a laugh. "I forgot, scientists can't just have faith, can they?" She raises a teasing brow at her friend. "You need proof?"
Tessa frowns as she takes in Wanda's words, feeling the tacit accusation slowly spread like a stain on her character. "I have faith," she argues blandly.
"Just not in yourself," she counters, no question to her voice. "Let's just try something. Okay?" She settles back into the cushions and lets her eyes drift shut, telling Tessa – words certain and voice soothing – to do the same. "Close your eyes."
But instead of falling shut, her eyes ping nervously around the room. It's not as though she and Wanda hadn't played this game a hundred times before, not as though they'd never leapt deeply into each other's minds… to learn and teach, to soothe and rest. It's actually something they'd gotten pretty good at, especially after Cal left and Tessa needed help blocking out all of the overwhelming energies that caused her to spin further out into a depression. She trusts her, of course. They trust each other… wouldn't be able to do this otherwise. And normally, Tessa has no qualms about letting Wanda in.
But right now everything just feels so… dangerous.
She looks down and watches as Wanda's thumb drifts in slow circles over the back of her hand – a calming, stilling energy seeping into her from that spot. She shakes her head adamantly and hot tears begin to build behind her eyes. "No," she whimpers, shutting her eyes tightly closed. "No. I don't… It's not…"
Wanda leans in close and whispers to her, "Tessa, there's something you need to know," before clutching her hand tight and shooting into her mind. Everything else falls away as she steps into her friend's subconscious. "You need to be able to understand what's real. You need to see," she says to her, voice flitting lightly through the air. "Just… think," that word being the final command to fall aloud from her lips. Think.
Slowly, a new – no, old – world gathers behind Tessa's lids, forming into a reality that only she and Wanda can share. She opens her eyes in this space, sees Wanda standing across from her, gazing about the dark, empty room. The walls are a barren light green, the floor a deep, rich mahogany. A single full-size bed, blankets and sheets lain askew, sits along the far wall. In the corner, there's a suitcase with balled up sweaters and twisted pairs of jeans spilling out in all directions. Out the large bay window, snow can be seen, falling rapidly, silently outside. Wanda gets lost in the landscape, lost in the hypnotizing pace of the steadily falling flakes, and after a single, swift blink, she finds herself sitting in the plush window seat alongside Tessa.
"It's my room," she mutters blankly, dark hair falling in a curtain over her face as she stares intently out the window, watching the snow gradually cover the grounds below.
Wanda reaches out and tucks her hair back behind her ear. She ducks her head a bit as well so that she can see her friend's face – solemn, mournful energy sloughing off of her. "At the school?" she asks, already knowing the answer. Though she'd only been to Xavier's once before, the feel of the place was one that would never leave her. And even here, buried deep inside of Tessa's mind, that feeling is the same.
She nods. "I moved out," she says, dipping her head towards the corner to indicate the spilled suitcase. "Then I came back."
"This was just after Jean?" she asks, voice soft and careful.
The two had never really talked about Jean before. Despite all of their sessions and discussions and intensive power experiments, they'd never actually talked about that darkest part of Tessa's life. But Wanda knew none the less. She'd taken the story that Bucky had relayed to her about those terrible events just over a decade ago, and she combined the narrative with all of the things that she'd seen and heard and felt when inside her friend's head. And through that, a rather vivid story had formed.
She knew that Tessa had been away at college – gradually pulling further from her family and desperately trying to build something new for herself – when Professor Xavier had called and beckoned her home. She knew that she'd been told about her brother's death, at the hands of his love… the woman Tessa always thought of as a sister, perhaps even a mother, certainly an adored mentor. And she knew that she had been tasked with stopping this woman, putting an end to the power that had grown so terribly dangerous, so utterly uncontrollable.
"I killed her," Tessa says with a short nod. "And then I went back to Columbia. Tried to." She shrugs and, finally, meets Wanda's gaze. "But I… I couldn't. I just… couldn't. So I came back."
The younger woman nods slowly, sadly, the awful knowledge of what happened to her friend once she returned home sitting like a stone in her gut. "And you felt it then?" she asks. "The… Phoenix?"
Again, she nods. "After Jean… after pulling it out of her, some of it stayed behind." She looks away, shaking her head lamentingly. "It's just like everything else… everyone else," she says, tapping a finger harshly against her temple. "The others I've killed, the other's I've… pulled from. Logan, from all the times he helped me heal." She snorts out a quick laugh. "I used to pick on Kitty, drain her. And I can still feel her too." She looks back up at Wanda, locks onto her wide eyes and blinks out a thick stream of tears. "I feel… so many now. So many new ones… people I don't know. Don't recognize. They're just… here."
Her face contorts into a desperate expression – a plea for help, for guidance – and Wanda's eyes begin to water as well. "I know," she says simply, reaching up to wipe away the tears streaming down Tessa's cheeks, noting the very real warmth on her fingertips as she swipes away the illusions.
"Jessup," she says suddenly, nearly choking on the name. "He's in here now too."
Wanda lets out a harsh breath and nods. "Yes," she states, tone stoic. "He is."
Dark, glassy green eyes bounce up and lock onto hers as Tessa asks in a warbly, uncertain voice, "That's what I needed to know? That I… I killed Dr. Jessup?"
"Part of it, yes." Wanda looks away for a fleeting moment, just long enough to gather herself. It's her responsibility right now to keep things safe inside of Tessa's unstable mind. She closes her eyes and swallows down the sob that threatens to spill from her chest – the one that carries grief for a lost teammate, and sorrow for a suffering friend – and then she steels herself to ask, "What about the Phoenix?" She opens her eyes and slowly raises her hand up to Tessa's temple, lightly touching the spot that the woman had been so violently tapping at a moment ago. "Can you feel it in here too? As a… separate energy?"
In a flash – in the blink of any eye – Tessa is across the room, standing in the doorway, staring back at a reeling Wanda. "I can't…" she says, anxiety lacing her tone. "Jean," she cries out. "Jean says… she says…" Her voice trembles, words setting to a stutter, as she slowly raises her hands up in front of her. "She says she can only keep it down for so long. Only for so long." She looks at Wanda, her eyes brimming with tears… and shining a startling, luminescent blue. "She says, I am death."
Wanda's breath catches as a new voice fills the room, one that's soft and kind, and eerily familiar to her ears. It pulls from the air, bounces off the walls, and reverberates through the construct that they share. When a particularly massive star dies – I mean one that's twenty times more massive than our sun – then the explosion can be… cataclysmic. That's a supernova.
"Is that," Wanda starts, a sudden unease rising to her voice as a deep fear begins to prick at her senses. She knows the voice from past sessions with Tessa, from those times she's had to come in and sweep away all the bad, move the memories and pain and nightmares out to make room for her friend to just breathe. Despite its sweet tone, she knows that this is a voice that more often than not brings Tessa pain. "Is that Jean?"
"I am energy," Tessa states plainly, looking no longer at Wanda but almost through her.
When you go, I imagine you'll burn brighter than anyone ever thought possible. And you'll become something new… something more powerful than anyone could ever overcome.
Wanda feels a sudden surge of energy tear through her, taking her breath away and leaving in its stead an odd sort of understanding. "Tessa?" she calls out to her friend, eager to regain her focus as the air in the room begins to thicken.
Tessa's eyes snap back to Wanda's, the bright blue light glowing deeper and more intense as she asks, "Can you hear me hum? Can you feel me vibrate?"
Wanda pulls in a stilted breath. "Yes," she nods. "I always could."
"I can't…" she begins again, her face crumbling, head shaking and entire body trembling. "I can't do it…be it." She raises her hands higher and Wanda watches as blood begins to seep from her wrists, pool in her open palms before spilling out onto the dark wood floor.
"Oh," she gasps, trying desperately to rise from the window seat and rush to her side. But this world has her weighted down, and she simply can't get up. "Tessa," she tries in a stern tone.
But Tessa cannot hear her. She hangs her head and cries, body crumpling to the floor as the blood pours out of her.
"Tessa!" she barks at her. "You need to stop this," she says, voice sharp and commanding. "I know you think you can't. But you can. I promise you, you can."
Just then, a new voice sounds… a measured, masculine tone carrying on a sudden and chilling breeze. Don't try to fight us, miss. You won't win.
Tessa's head snaps up, face smeared with tears and blood as she gapes openly, eyes pinging around the room as they seek out a visual from this swiftly rising memory. All at once, the room around them shifts and shrinks, becomes a stark white space filled with too-bright light and thick leather restraints falling from a sparse, narrow bed.
This is the room that they had seen in the footage from Nunavut. Wanda recognizes it immediately, even as the conjured visual flickers around her. "Who is that?" she asks of the voice, desperately fighting to keep her frightened warble at bay. Tessa's mind had always been a… tumultuous place. But never before had she actually been scared to be inside of it.
"No name," she ekes out, tone low and dangerous and snaking out from between tightly clenched teeth. "I don't know any of their names." The blue light begins to drain from her eyes, an eerie red glow gathering in its place.
You only feel like you're on fire because of the stimulation. If you'd stop fighting the sedation, this would be far less painful, I promise you.
Crackles of bright red light spit out from her blood-stained fingertips, setting the air on fire. Wanda gasps at the sudden shift in temperature and watches intently as Tessa slowly rises from the floor, her stare trained on two shadowy forms taking shape by the bed. "You can control it," she reminds her friend, her own jaw clenching as she watches the scrubs-clad men slowly coalesce before them.
"Jean didn't think I could," Tessa mutters almost to herself before angrily swiping her wrists across her thighs to wipe away the sticky blood. At mention of Jean, the image of the too-bright room – and the barely there man – flickers out completely, leaving them back in the warm embrace of her bedroom at the school. The cold wind stops too – lifting away just as swiftly as it had descended – and a transitory calm fills the space around them.
"No," Wanda says, finally able to rise. She steps cautiously over to Tessa, almost mesmerized by the flickering, fiery red still cascading off of her. She reaches out to touch one of the bright stems of light, a sharp shock stealing her breath away. Her own powers kick in then, a defense of sorts, as an invisible shield gathers around her thoughtform. She looks Tessa in the eye, her own now glowing red as well, the power within her burgeoning to the surface as that steady hum she so easily recognizes as Tessa grows louder around them. "Jean knew you could."
Tears leak from Tessa's angry red eyes, the saline turning to steam before even hitting her cheeks. "I'd become something more powerful than anyone could overcome…"
"That's right," she says, voice light and breathy. She forces her shields down, her own glow draining away. "She knew that you were strong enough to control it. To use it. She was just afraid of how it would affect you. She was afraid of what you'd become."
You can outshine entire galaxies.
Tears continue to vaporize from her eyes as the pulsating red light burns through her. "So she tried to hold it down. To protect me," she murmurs softly.
Wanda nods, feeling Jean in the air surrounding them, feeling her love whipping about them both. "She only ever wanted to protect you."
She looks up and connects with Wanda's tender gaze, and gradually, the red begins to drain from her eyes. "She protected me," comes out of her in a near whisper as long-forgotten memories rise to the surface, cascading in a stream of images through the room, like a filmstrip fluttering in the wind.
Jean chiding her following a nearly disastrous chemistry experiment.
Jean holding her close as she cried following her first heartbreak.
Jean using her powers – time and time again – to keep her from harm when she made a careless mistake in the field.
Jean calling out – from within her – to Logan, urging him with a silent impression to go upstairs and check on the despondent girl who truly wanted to die.
Jean gathering like a force inside of her and using all that remained of her power to push murky river water from her lungs.
Jean whispering in her ear – her voice cutting in through the hum, through the din of strangers conferring over her tightly bound body – telling her to go. Now! Use it, Anna. Now!
Jean asking her pointedly – so, so many years ago – What is energy?
"Energy is me," Tessa says suddenly, a blast of power bursting forth from somewhere in her mind, obliterating the room and sending their thoughtforms tumbling into the darkness.
She pulls in a long, gasping breath, eyes shooting open to peer at an equally stunned Wanda, still sitting by her side on the sofa. She looks around the room nervously, trying to ground herself in reality as she works to regain control of the air billowing in and out of her lungs, and she says simply, "It is real. All of it."
Wanda smiles at her, bright and wide and so utterly proud. "It is," she nods. "Just because it's in your head, doesn't mean it's not real."
"Everything they did to me. Everything I did…" Tessa starts, a deep, shuddering breath floundering from her chest as another just-gathered memory slams into her consciousness. "Oh, God… Jessup."
Wanda squeezes her fingers tight. "It was an accident," she tells her, expression and tone both earnest and clear. "You were so… traumatized. You didn't know then… you didn't know what was real, what was a threat… what was us."
"But now I do?" she asks, brows knitting stiffly together.
She shrugs. "Do you feel like you do?" Tessa cocks her head to the side, a somber expression taking the place of her muddled grimace. But she says nothing. "I wanted you to know," Wanda says softly. "I wanted you to see… what I see in there. What I notice every time I try to… move through all of the warring energies inside your mind."
Tessa looks curiously at her, expectantly.
"You need to understand what truly is real. All of those voices that you hear, those people that you feel, they're not… imagined. They're not just dreams that you can push away. They're not ghosts or mere memories that you can try to forget. All of those forces are real. And they are – or should be – a part of you. How can you expect to control them – to control all of that energy – if you won't even allow them to be a part of you?"
"I… I don't understand."
"I've been inside your head, Tessa," she states patiently. "I've seen you, over and over and over again, pull all of these forces apart, push them away. You work so hard to keep them separated out, to bury the bad energies deep down inside. And to manipulate even the good ones – like Jean or Logan or Kitty – to keep them from becoming part of you. You've been resisting for so long… you've been refusing to merge their energies with your own. Do you even realize how much strength it takes to do that? Do you?"
She frowns deeply, her head pivoting solemnly back and forth. "I'm not strong. I don't feel strong."
"You are. You've been controlling all of that energy inside of you everyday, without even being consciously aware. You've been burying it down and shifting it around. Just imagine what you could do if you weren't constantly wasting all of your strength on that. And… imagine how powerful you could be if you allowed all of the energy inside of you to… to be you."
She huffs out a thick, shuddery breath. "So, what? You want me to… pull all of the energy I've ever pulled from anyone together? To do what? Make me more powerful? Too powerful to overcome?"
"Don't you see? Jean taught you to keep all of those collected forces inside of you… distinct. She taught you to push away the energy of the people you'd harmed or killed. She helped you to hold down the Phoenix. She kept you from… integrating. Because she was afraid." Wanda pulls in a deep breath and gives Tessa's hand a firm, reassuring squeeze. "But I'm not. I'm not at all afraid of you, or of what you might become. Because whatever you become, it'll still be you. And I want you to be you. I want you to embrace your power. All of it. I want you to trust that you can control that power. To have faith in yourself. To believe in yourself."
"Wanda," she starts, her lips quickly snapping shut just after. She shakes her head slowly, a long, deep breath flowing out of slightly flared nostrils. "I can't just… believe in myself. That's not a switch you can just flip."
"You believe in yourself as a doctor… as a scientist." She raises a teasing eyebrow. "You're actually pretty smug about it. What's the difference here?" she asks, genuine interest dripping from her voice.
Tessa's eyes flit away, sad gaze directed off towards nothing. "I trust what I know. I believe in my expertise as a scientist because I know things. But… with my powers? I don't know where they came from or why I have them. Or what all I can do with them. Or what I'm supposed to do with them." She pauses to pull in a long, stilling breath. "I know they came from my parents. But… I never knew them… not anything about them. I don't even know their names." Her eyes blink slowly shut as she says, words tumbling out barely a whisper, "I don't even know my name."
"So you don't know who you were born as," she says with a subtle shrug. "Not knowing who you were, Tessa, that's not the same as not knowing who you are."
She looks up then, a sad, almost lost look on her face. "I've been Anna, the little orphan. Annie Summers, the sister and student. Supernova, of the X-Men. Nova, the childhood friend. I've been the Avengers' and Stark Industries' Dr. Sullivan… and just plain Tessa, I guess. Now I'm… Tessa Barnes? And," she glances down at her wrist before thrusting it high in the air to show off that awful new tattoo. "Apparently, I'm Mutant 122." She throws her hands up and huffs out a frustrated breath. "I just… I don't know."
Wanda nods slowly, thoughtfully as she plans her words. "Who do you want to be?" she asks finally, voice soft and serene.
She pulls in a swift breath and turns her gaze up to meet her friend's. "I don't… I don't think I get to decide that. I don't think it's up to me."
Wanda squeezes her hand tight. "I promise you, it is. Maybe you're not ready to decide just yet, but who you are – and what you are… and what you might become – it all absolutely is up to you. Just… don't fight it anymore, Tessa. Please. Don't fight who you are."
They sit in silence for a long moment, each woman taking a bit of time to gather her thoughts, to calm her nerves. To readjust to the real world around them. Tessa looks up at the young woman beside her, a small, grateful smile tugging at her lips as she feels the gift of soothing, confident energy gradually seep into her.
Wanda returns the fond grin. Then she drops Tessa's hand, hops up from the couch, and gathers the felled sweater up off the floor. "Now," she intones, voice holding a bit of an edge as she hands the garment over, "what are we going to about that lying, double-crossing little whore?"